A Junior and a Sixth Grader

As of Thursday, May 23rd at 1:30, I am the parent of a junior in high school and a sixth grader.

That’s pretty awesome.

I got to see Amy’s granddaughter for the first time last weekend. She’ll be six months old on the 27th (she shares Olivia’s birthday.) She’s beautiful. She looks like her Mimi. Amy chose that as her grandma name when her ex-husband’s oldest daughter had kids and Amy was very active with them. I love it.

She’d have LOVED this baby. She was so sweet, so good-natured. Amy’s daughter and son-in-law are very lucky.

I got to hold that baby and it was awesome.

But..I love the stage my kids are now. I didn’t enjoy the baby stage as much as a lot of people do.

Babies are so much work. Sure, they’re adorable but they also need to be fed and cleaned and carried and put to bed and…and…and the list is never ending with their needs.

People who want to have babies because they want someone to love them are insane. Babies don’t love you. Babies need you.

Teenagers are so much better than babies. They might be sassy but at least they can feed themselves and take care of their own bathroom needs. They can dress themselves and make their needs knowing by using their words.

I love teenagers and preteens. Olivia won’t be a teenager for another six months and that’s cool too. She’s a little needier than your typical twelve year old but hey, she can speak, she can walk, she can (sometimes) feed herself. So yeah, I’ll take these two over all the beautiful babies in the world.

Sophomore year was good to Alyssa. She received the Outstanding Musicianship award from her choir teacher for the year. She got 5th place at the BBC (Buckeye Border Conference) in high jump. She participated in the school play. She went to several honors choirs/bands. She went on a lot of dates with Naomi and hung out with other friends too. I think she had a fun year. She started driving this year and will probably get a job this summer. That ought to be fun.

Fifth grade was…challenging at times but overall, I think it was a good year for Olivia. She is learning fractions (sort of) and has started to understand multiplication. It helps when I count by fives when we’re working on things like five times six and so on. Her reading is amazing and her creativity for making up stories and writing them down knows no bounds.

She loved the phases of the moon section of science and I currently know more about symbiotic relationships than I ever wanted to know.

We’re ready for summer, for a break. We’re ready to slow down even though that might not actually happen for all of us (I’m looking at you, Miss Lyssie Lou Who and that job you’re going to get.)